


Iris

by physicalmachinist



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Colorblind Soulmate AU, Fluff, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Time Skip, surface angst deep fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29470140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/physicalmachinist/pseuds/physicalmachinist
Summary: “I want to see how green this is.” Komori let the grass trickle from his hand before he slouched against the tree under which he and Sakusa sat.“You worry yourself with this too much.” Sakusa leaned back against the tree, letting out a quiet sigh of his own.“It’s just, so many people talk about how blue the sky is, how colorful this is, how colorful that is. It bums me out, like I’m missing something,” Komori said.“We can’t miss what we never had, can we?”-Or Colorblind Soulmate AU where Sakusa’s black and white world turns colorful after finding his soulmate in a particular blond.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 89
Collections: SakuAtsu Fluff Week 2021





	Iris

Sakusa and Komori watched as a first-year girl ran around the courtyard, crying, touching everything she could around her during lunchtime. Like a child reciting the items in a picture book to her teacher, she identified all that she saw to her friend, who was following her around. She squealed about how green the grass was, how many different shades of leaves there were in the mid-autumn foliage, and the colors in her uniform that she had been wearing for months.

“I guess she just got her color vision.” Komori gave a weak smile. 

“I guess so,” Sakusa responded. 

“Don’t you wonder what it’s like?” Komori ripped up a handful of grass from the ground beside his leg and held it in front of Sakusa. 

“I want to see how green this is.” Komori let the grass trickle from his hand before he slouched against the tree under which he and Sakusa sat.

“You worry yourself with this too much.” Sakusa leaned back against the tree, letting out a quiet sigh of his own. 

“It’s just, so many people talk about how blue the sky is, how colorful this is, how colorful that is. It bums me out, like I’m missing something,” Komori said.

“We can’t miss what we never had, can we?”

“You know what I mean. I can’t wait to meet my soulmate already so that mine can kick in.”

On the way to the All-Japan Youth Camp, Sakusa thinks about the conversation he had with Komori that day during lunch. He keeps the idea in the back of his mind that at any time he can speak to someone new, and it could be the moment that he knows his soulmate. The youth camp is no exception, but how likely is he to run into his soulmate, let alone speak to them?

“Remember to talk to everyone,” Komori reminds him on the bus.

Sakusa would rather be flayed, but he gives Komori a noise of affirmation.

Sakusa makes a couple of attempts, with Kageyama being the first, but he doesn’t have the energy to think of something to say to everyone. Komori, however, manages to make his way through greeting all of the other athletes by the end of the first night.

“No luck?” Sakusa asks Komori as they wind down for bedtime.

“Doesn’t seem like it. How about you? Did you even try?”

“No.”

“Come on!”

“What are the chances it’ll be somebody at a high school volleyball camp? Half of the people here probably don’t even bathe properly.”

“Well, that’s your choice, then.”

“I can’t imagine ever finding someone who would complement... someone with as many quirks as me.” Sakusa’s voice declines to a mumble at the last part of his sentence. “And anyway, so many people die without meeting their soulmate. What if they’re on the other side of the world? Or an 87-year-old in a nursing home? If it happens, it happens, but if not, what’s the use in waiting for it?”

“What? Are you afraid of being disappointed?”

“Not really, I just don’t want to get bent out over something very unlikely.”

***

The next day, the players engage in 3-on-3s. In one rotation, Sakusa is on the same side as Atsumu and Hoshiumi. Sakusa receives a ball served by Komori from the other side and passes it right to Atsumu. Hoshiumi calls for the ball and spikes it. Komori receives the ball but it comes back over to Sakusa’s side. Hoshiumi receives the ball and gives it to Atsumu. 

“Left,” Sakusa calls and steadily makes his approach in preparation for Atsumu’s set. 

“Kiyoomi-kun,” Atsumu acknowledges.

Sakusa doesn’t watch the ball, because he trusts in Atsumu’s ability to place it where he needs it to be. This isn’t a decision Sakusa would typically make– to put full faith in a set from a stranger– but he lets Atsumu’s reputation speak for him. He jumps and locks his target onto the suddenly blue court. He loses every train of thought and gasps, realizing that he can see everyone on the opposing courts’ different hair colors and clothing. What are these colors? He usually doesn’t know unless it’s something that has a characteristic color, like bananas or his school colors.

He drops to the ground and the volleyball falls on the floor in front of him. He sees the yellow and blue leather hugging each other on the ball as it bounces. The Mikasa volleyball’s blue isn’t the same as the court’s blue, with one being darker than the other.

“What the hell?” Sakusa and Atsumu ask at the same time.

Everyone on the court approaches Sakusa, and those on the sidelines stare at him. He sees the beige of the gymnasium’s walls, Atsumu’s blonde hair, Hoshiumi’s green eyes. Too many variables and not enough stability as he struggles to orient himself with his newfound vision.

“I don’t feel well,” he manages to get out before he dashes to the bathroom.

He splashes cold water on his face and tries to slow his hyperventilation. He looks at himself in the mirror. There’s a color blanketing his face that differs from the rest of his skin. “Is this red?” He wonders, and he isn’t sure if it’s from the water, the shock, or the embarrassment. 

Sakusa hears the bathroom door swing open and debates running into a stall until he sees that it’s Komori entering. 

“What’s going on? Are you alright?”

“I got my color vision,” Sakusa says between heavy breaths.

“Are you serious?”

“Your hair, it’s so much lighter than mine. I don’t- I can’t-“ 

“Hey, take a second… It’s supposed to be a lot.” 

Sakusa heeds his advice. After a couple of moments, he turns off the faucet.

“Feeling better?” Komori asks. 

“Yeah, I think so.”

Komori fixes his face into a scowl. “What are the chances it’ll be someone at a high school volleyball camp,” he mocks the words Sakusa said the previous night. “And you didn’t even try. Boom. Now you see colors, leaving the rest of us lonely people to see boring black and white.” 

“I stand corrected.” Sakusa wipes his face with the top part of his shirt.

“So, what’s it like?”

Sakusa used to get frustrated when those who can see color don’t have the words to explain it. 

“Red is like, red,” his mother would tell him when he was a child.

“Yeah, but what is it like?” Sakusa would ask, exasperated.

“I can’t describe it. It’s just red. It’s warm, but I don’t know how to describe it so that you can picture it. You’ll see when it happens to you.”

Now, Sakusa finds himself in the same predicament. Colors are how you describe things themselves, not the other way around. 

“I wish I could tell you.”

“Ugh, you’re just like the rest of them.”

“We should head back now.”

“What? You’re not going to even look out the window? And what are you going to do? Just casually walk up to your soulmate? Who was it again?”

So much had happened in such a short time frame, Sakusa has to reach into his brain for the last thing he said.

“I called ‘left’ to Miya Atsumu.”

There isn’t much Sakusa knows about him. He’s from Inarizaki, he’s the top setter at their current level, he can be smug at times, and he likes absolute quiet when he serves. Not much about him potentially being a life partner. Sakusa’s stomach jolts at the idea. 

Sakusa and Komori return to the court and stand at the sidelines. Atsumu plays in the current set, and Sakusa’s heart bangs against his chest like a bass drum. What does he say to him? Should he say anything? 

As far as Sakusa knew, Atsumu didn’t seem to have any outlandish reaction to talking to him, but maybe he did and pretended like nothing happened. That isn’t an uncommon response, and it’s the response that Sakusa thought he, himself, would have, but in actuality, it was a sensory overload he couldn’t mask.

Something clicks. Sakusa realizes Atsumu’s hair is two different colors– a deep yellow on top of dark brown. Why should one have dyed hair if they saw in only black and white before today? What if he isn’t Atsumu’s soulmate?

He always thought to himself that he would never want to know who his soulmate is if he’s not theirs, but since this knowledge is now inevitable, better to control what he can, which is not bothering to find out if he’s Atsumu’s soulmate.

The plan survives into the night, until Atsumu approaches Sakusa as he prepares for bed.

“Hi, uh, did what I think happened earlier today actually happen?” Atsumu scratches the nape of his neck. Sakusa notices red dusting his cheeks with each growing second.

“What do you think happened?”

“Ya got yer color vision after you called fer the ball during our set.” 

Sakusa didn’t think it was that obvious. He thought it looked like he could’ve eaten something bad that attacked right in the middle of his approach. Atsumu already has it figured out.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Sakusa sits down on his bed while looking at the floor. “But I suppose you already met your soulmate.”

“What makes ya say that?” 

“Your hair is very obviously not your natural color... I don’t even think it’s a natural color, period.” 

“Kiyoomi-kun, ya don’t sweeten yer words, do ya?”

Sakusa doesn’t respond. 

“Yeah, I already have my color vision.” Atsumu continues.

Sakusa would have to lie to say that wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. 

“But, I was born with it,” Atsumu finishes.

“What? How?”

“My soulmate’s my twin brother.”

“...Oh.”

Atsumu is one of the lucky few to never have experienced the world as black and white. 

“Well, that’s nice, but if we’re not each other’s soulmates, what now?”

“May I?” Atsumu gestures to a spot on Sakusa’s bed next to him. Sakusa’s first thought is “no”- he wouldn’t even let Komori into his bed, but Atsumu is special. Even if Sakusa doesn’t quite know why yet. 

“Sure,” Sakusa responds, and Atsumu takes a seat.

“Yeah, Osamu might be my soulmate, but I’m sure as hell not going to marry him. Not to say I’ll marry you... I mean not that I don’t want to marry you, but-“

“I get it,” Sakusa smirks. His heart pounds again for the umpteenth time today, but this time it pounds in excitement.

“Who would’ve thought I’d be a prickly germaphobe’s soulmate?”

“Whoever thought mine should be a bottle blonde... or whatever color that is.”

They both chuckle.

“Say, Omi-kun, when this week’s done, we should go on a date- I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Sure.”

“Really?” Atsumu all but yells his question.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, ya don’t strike me as the type to care about soulmates and stuff, and I’m not sure if you like me.”

“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be in my room right now, let alone my bed.”

Atsumu grins from ear to ear and opens his arms to hug Sakusa.

“Uh…” Sakusa says without moving a single limb towards Atsumu.

“Not yet?” Atsumu asks and Sakusa shakes his head. 

The two spend the rest of the youth camp by each other’s side. Atsumu joins Sakusa in being the first ones to use the bath after dinner, and they text each other about everything and nothing after bedtime until one of them falls asleep first. 

***

After the youth camp, Komori visits Sakusa at his house to help him pick out an outfit for his date with Atsumu.

Sakusa now finds himself facing a wardrobe that has only black clothing, aside from his Itachiyama-related clothing, a couple of pairs of jeans, and a pair of khakis.

He turns to Komori, “Do you think he likes black?”

“Black’s always safe… I think.” 

Sakusa digs deeper into his closet and finds a burgundy button-down shirt.

“Seriously? How many times have I worn this thinking it was black?” He puts the shirt against his body. 

“Why, is it not black?”

“No, it’s dark red.” He recalls when he bought the shirt at the store with his mother, who told him that the shirt was, in fact, black. “My mom lied to me.”

“Well, she always complains about how you don’t wear enough colors, so…”

Sakusa starts to put the shirt back into the closet.

“Wait! If that’s the only shirt you have that isn’t black, maybe you should wear it.” 

“What if he doesn’t like dark red?”

“We could go on all day…”

“You wouldn’t understand; it’s a color vision thing.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Fine, I’ll wear the dark red shirt,” Sakusa huffs.

Sakusa gets to Atsumu’s stop at the train station right as Atsumu gets off.

“Omi-kun! Did ya miss me?”

“It’s only been a couple of days, Miya.”

“Well, I missed you.” 

The two stroll from the station to the restaurant Sakusa has in mind. He finds himself questioning his outfit decision– the burgundy button-down shirt and dark wash jeans under his black trench coat in juxtaposition to Atsumu’s black, ripped skinny jeans, white t-shirt, and denim jacket. 

“You look lovely,” Atsumu says to Sakusa, with a soft and genuine voice.

Sakusa feels his face heat up. 

“Thanks. So do you,” Sakusa replies, shyly. Sakusa doesn’t have much experience in the dating department, and his being on a date with Atsumu feels like a round of charades. He awaits the moment where Atsumu turns to him and says that this is all a joke.

“Thanks, Omi-kun.”

When they get to the restaurant, Sakusa anxiety sharpens. He doesn’t do well in public spaces, he doesn’t know Atsumu all that well, and he’s afraid of messing up. He treads carefully as he orders from the menu, making sure to get something that wouldn’t smell bad or give him gas.

“Hey, Omi-Omi, what’s causing yer discomfort? Do ya want me to sit on the same side of the table as you?”

“Yes,” Sakusa responds. 

Without hesitation, Atsumu moves his plates over to Sakusa’s side of the table and then himself.

“Can I?” Atsumu asks as he hovers his hand over Sakusa’s thigh. 

“Maybe my shoulder.” Atsumu does just that.

“I don’t bite, Omi-kun. Just let me know if I can do anything fer ya and I will.”

Sakusa’s insides liquify. Although he spent a good amount of the last week talking to Atsumu, he finds himself wanting to know more about him. Sakusa wants to ask something, anything that’s beyond small talk. He wants to know Atsumu’s life, but are they at that point yet? What if Atsumu thinks he’s being too invasive?

“What’s your favorite color?” Sakusa conjures up to ask.

“Oh, um…,” Atsumu begins.

Sakusa kicks himself for the triviality of his question.

“I think green– a chartreuse green more so than regular green.”

“What’s a chartreuse?”

Atsumu pulls out his phone, searches for an example, and shows it to Sakusa.

“Oh, like the green on my team uniform.”

“Exactly. What about yours?”

Sakusa deliberates. 

“I haven’t decided yet. Maybe purple.”

“I didn’t take ya for someone who’d like purple. I thought you’d like black or gray. Yer shirt kind of surprised me, honestly.”

“Give me some credit, though I did think this shirt was black when I got it, but I couldn’t see colors back then so it doesn’t count,” Sakusa defends.

The two chuckle, and Sakusa feels like he’s taking proper breaths through his nose again as opposed to a straw. They take playful jabs at each other as they enjoy their meals.

With full bellies, Sakusa decides to take Atsumu to a local waterfront to look out at the bay. 

“This is a nice place,” Atsumu says. His breath collects in the air and leaves as vapor as they walk along the perimeter.

“I like coming here to clear my head sometimes.”

“Is there something on yer mind now?”

Sakusa exhales.

“The last week has been a lot, to say the least. I found out you’re my soulmate, but I’m not necessarily yours. I’ve looked at hundreds of colors and I still didn’t know what ‘chartreuse’ was, and now I’m on a date with you, and I want this to work.”

“Omi-kun! I’m flattered ya find me worthy of working with.” Atsumu walks ahead of Sakusa and faces him head-on.

“Where to start… For one, I think people can have multiple soulmates. Anyone who finds their first soulmate never knows when they meet their second one, ‘cause the color seal’s already been broken. Osamu is and will always be important to me, but you’re already becoming more and more important to me also, ya know?”

“You’re important to me too, Atsumu.” 

“Atsumu? Did ya just call me Atsumu?” Atsumu can hardly contain himself as Sakusa rolls his eyes.

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“I’m planning our wedding as we speak.”

Sakusa stills.

“Kidding… unless?” Atsumu adds.

The two giggle and Atsumu fixes his gaze at Sakusa’s smile in the moment. 

“I really wanna hold your hand right now, Omi-Omi.”

Atsumu appears to be visibly cold, with both hands shoved into his jacket. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t consider how cold it would be when I decided to come out here. You can put your hands in my pockets if you’d like.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Atsumu walks from behind Sakusa and places his hands into Sakusa’s deep pockets. Sakusa closes his arms against his torso so that they cover the exposed parts of Atsumu’s wrists from his jacket sleeves sliding up, and Atsumu rests his head on the back of Sakusa’s shoulder. The feeling that swirls inside of Sakusa can only be described as a malfunction.

“If you get too cold and you want to leave, let me know,” Sakusa squeaks, trying and failing to sound as steady as possible.

“Trust me, Omi-kun, I can stay here forever.”

***

Sakusa and Atsumu made it a point to visit each other at least once a month for the remainder of their time in high school. Atsumu sat alongside Sakusa as he opened his acceptance letters into college. They both attended each other’s graduations. Atsumu was Sakusa’s plus one for his sister’s wedding. Sakusa stands in the room on the other side of the cameras when Atsumu commits to the Black Jackals. The two have become interwoven into each other’s lives as sudden as the bursts of color that filled Sakusa’s vision that one fateful day.

Presently, Sakusa and Atsumu have been dating for five and a half years. When given the offer to join the Black Jackals after finishing his degree, Sakusa thought it was a no brainer, and now gets to receive Atsumu’s sets with full faith as he once did before. 

After a game one day, Sakusa prepares dinner and the table for both of them while Atsumu runs to the store to get a spice that Sakusa thinks would really “make the meal.” He wonders if it was too much to send him out for it, and almost regrets it until he hears his boyfriend open the door. 

“Omi-kun, I got it.” Atsumu approaches Sakusa with the spice in one hand and his other hand behind his back.

“Thanks, Atsu. What do you have there?” Sakusa cranes his neck to see behind him. 

“I have a gift for you, my love.” Atsumu reveals a bouquet of irises and a box of dark chocolate from behind him.

Sakusa walks towards Atsumu. “These are beautiful.”

“I got them since they’re your favorite color.”

“Oh, you remembered?.” Sakusa leans to give Atsumu a kiss as he takes the gifts. 

“How could I forget? Are ya tearing up, Omi?”

“No!”

“It’s okay, Omi-kun, I got ya.”

Atsumu pulls Sakusa into an embrace, and they kiss once more. After, Sakusa puts the irises into a vase and watches as the purple petals swirl in the water. He thinks about how the world used to be black and white before he spoke to his partner and how one word– one person– opened his eyes to the range of colors he couldn’t see before.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed :) and say hi to me on Twitter


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